The first regional Conference of the Regional Programme for Local Democracy in the Western Balkans 3 (ReLOaD3) was held under the theme “Results and Regional Impact: Strengthening Local Governance and Civil Society in the Western Balkans.”
The conference featured keynote addresses by Erdxhan Selimi, Deputy Minister of Local Self-Government; Simela Cakiri, Head of the team for civil society and media coordination in the Western Balkans and Türkiye at the European Commission; and Armen Grigoryan, Resident Representative of UNDP in North Macedonia.
In his remarks, Deputy Minister Selimi emphasized that citizens’ participation in local decision-making reflects the essence of local self-government and serves as a key indicator of its accountability and transparency. He further underlined that “there can be no successful decentralization without local democracy, as these two processes are mutually interdependent.”
